Published: Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009 / Updated: Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009 11:56 AM

Review: Local hospitals are on par with other medical centers

The care provided at Rock Hill's Piedmont Medical Center and at other area hospitals compares favorably overall with state and national average standards, recent statistics show.

Piedmont scored at the state and national average for heart failure care but fell below the state and national average in infection prevention and hip and knee replacements, according to the Joint Commission's Accreditation Quality Report for the period from March 2008 to April 2009.

Health care quality reports by the Joint Commission, an independent, not-for-profit national organization that accredits and certifies more than 17,000 health care organizations, provide detailed information about hospitals' performance and how they compare. The commission does on-site evaluations and uses data from other sources, such as the federal Medicare program.

The reports help hospitals identify their strengths and weaknesses and indicate which hospitals they can look to for ideas to improve, said Dr. Richard Patterson, chief medical officer at Piedmont Medical Center.

“We're a supporter of these types of reporting,” he said. “For quite some time, we've been leading the region with our performance. We're steadily improving. We have up-to-the-day data we look at every day.”

The reports compare the death rates from heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia care within 30 days of hospitalization against the state and national averages. The reports also evaluate hospitals in dozens of other categories, from the percentage of patients who received a proper dosage of medication to whether patients were sent home with proper instructions for care.

Compared to the rest of the country, South Carolina's overall health care is average, according to the agency. The state scored weak in preventive measures and cancer measures, while it scored strong in providing care in homes and at the hospital.

“For a poor state, we're doing better than you might expect,” said Mark Tompkins, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina who studies health policy. “There are other states having much more trouble.”

Challenges such as the state's rural, diverse population play into the quality of care, he said.

Experts say such reports help patients evaluate health care. Reporting the statistics to the public has only occurred over the past several years, but hospitals have had the information for decades.

“This is the beginning of an effort to help patients and providers make better choices in health care,” Tompkins said. “Patients can demand better care and know what that better care is. They can act like consumers.”

The results

Among the findings of the most recent reports are:

Piedmont, Springs Memorial Hospital in Lancaster and neighboring Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte all rate above the state and national average in heart attack care.

Chester Regional Medical Center is the only area hospital that falls below state and national averages in heart attack care.

None of the area hospitals scored better than the national 30-day death rates for heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia.

The death rate counts patients who die within 30 days of their admission to the hospital, whether or not they actually leave the hospital, according to Medicare data. Those rates take into account how sick a patient is when he or she enters the hospital.

PMC, Chester and Springs all ranked at the state and national average for heart failure care.

All three hospitals ranked at the national average in 30-day readmission rates for pneumonia, heart attack and heart failure patients. The readmission rate counts patients hospitalized again within 30 days of being discharged.

Piedmont ranks below Springs, CMC and the Chester hospital and below the national average in the percentage of pneumonia patients who die within 30 days of hospitalization, according to the latest Medicare data.

PMC is one of eight hospitals in South Carolina that had a 30-day pneumonia death rate worse than the 12 percent national average. Piedmont's death rate from pneumonia within 30 days of hospital admission was 14.8 percent. CMC and the Chester hospital each reported pneumonia death rates of 10 percent.